Pericope: Scripture as written and read in antiquity

What others think of the Pericope series

 

D.J. Clark in Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 99 (2002) on volume 1: `This is surely a field to which more attention will have to be given in the future, especially now that the availability of computers makes practical the processing of large amounts of data from many sources.'

G.A. Klingbeil in Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 4 (2002-2003) on volume 1: `All in all Delimitation Criticism, being the collaborative effort of nine different authors, provides a very useful introduction to a new method in biblical studies which focuses upon how the ancients (scholars, scribes, copyists, translators) read and thus understood the texts they were working with. In this sense, delimitation criticism provides a rare glimpse into ancient interpretation techniques. Most of the chapters are very readable and provide the data in an intelligent manner. Some of them are challenging and shed new light on old questions. However, all of them challenge the advanced student or accomplished scholar to look more carefully at ancient traditions that need to be taken seriously.'

T.S. Laniak in Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 4 (2002-2003) on volume 2:
`The Structure of the Book of Ruth should be appreciated for its thoroughness and for the novel contribution it makes as a bridge between text criticism and literary criticism. One must agree with her that ancient reading conventions should be taken into consideration along with other forms of literary analysis. While this new approach offers another important (hitherto neglected) source of information, this data must be interpreted together with all other forms of textual, linguistic, and literary data. Korpel models this kind of integrated analysis well.'

A.J. Hauser in Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 4 (2002-2003) on volume 3:
`The importance of this book is that it shows the value of a careful study of text divisions in the many ancient manuscripts we possess, and it accentuates the need to make available to scholars in collated form the text divisions in these manuscripts, as is the laudable goal of the Pericope series. But even given that value, these ancient text divisions can form only one part of contemporary attempts to divide the text into sense units upon which to base our exegesis.'

E. Ben Zvi in Review of Biblical Literature 4 (2003) on volume 3:
`this volume makes a contribution to and draws attention to a field that deserves much consideration, to a field that has been neglected for too long.'

W.G.E. Watson in Society for Old Testament Study, Book List 2004, London: Continuum (= JSOT 28.5), 2004, 130, on volume 4:
`All these scholars show, once again, that the traditional subdivisions indicated in the manuscripts and versions cannot be ignored in future study of the HB.'

G. Martin in Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 5 (2004-2005) on volume 4.

Michael H. Floyd in Review of Biblical Literature 9 (2004) on volume 4:
`(T)hese essays show impressive mastery of philology, familiarity with the versions, facility with manuscripts, and so forth. The sheer erudition is striking. I generally found it fascinating to go along on the excursions taken by these authors through manuscripts and versions.'

John Engle in Review of Biblical Literature 6 (2006) on volume 5:
`The compilation is very worthwhile, thoughtprovoking, and informative. Further, despite being formed by so many different scholars, one can trace themes that run throughout the entire book.'

W. Hu in Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 6 (2006) on volume 5: "The strength of the Pericope series should be obvious now. It is widely recognized that the current form-critical, stylistic and rhetorical methods of analysis possess insufficient potential to attain a basic form of scholarly agreement about the structure of a text. Therefore it is a welcome addition to our methodical arsenal to look at the paragraphing found in manuscripts from antiquity, as advocated and demonstrated again by the studies published in this book."

A.R. Millard in Society for Old Testament Study, Book List 2006, London: Sage Publications, 112, on volume 5: `All future commentators and translators should take account of these detailed and productive investigations.'

M. Hopf in Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 8 (2008) on volume 6: "... the contributions in this volume present many important if not punctually remarkable insights that advance the understanding of biblical texts in their historical setting."

M. Hopf in Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 9 (2009) on volume 7: "... the contributions do more than justice to the superscription under which they are combined: the authors successfully demonstrate -- still in varying degrees, but on the whole in a consistent and conclusive form -- the relevance of traditions of textual arrangement for the interpretation of both individual biblical passages as well as for books as a whole. Interestingly, the majority of the contributions deliberate on pericopes from the prophetic corpus, which can be ascribed to the obvious problem of the punctual opacity of these texts. For exactly this reason Unit Delimitation may be of great value ..."

Ibolya Balla in Review of Biblical Literature 6 (2006) on volume 8 (De Bruin, Isaiah 1-12):
`Wim de Bruin's book is the result of tireless analysis of text dividers such as accents and spaces and a treasure house for modern exegetes that provides a valuable insight into the ancient reception history of Isa 1-12, into the traditions of interpreting this text.'

Gregor Geiger in Liber Annuus (2016) on volume 10, the monograph by E.J. Revell on the Pausal System:
`Das Buch ist ein Standardwerk, nicht nur für den überschaubaren Kreis derer, die sich mit hebräischen Pausalformen beschäftigen, sondern für alle, die an der hebräischen Bibel mit all ihren Feinheiten interessiert sind.'

 

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